Land acquisition problem delaying railway projects in Odisha: Sinha

Bhubaneswar: Union Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha on Monday accused the ruling BJD government of failing to acquire and hand over land for the railway infrastructure development in Odisha.

Sinha said the Centre is committed to speedy implementation of the projects.

“Several railway projects in Odisha have made tardy progress as the state government is yet to hand over the required land. I expect from the state government to expedite the land acquisition for accelerating the railway projects in the state,” said the Minister.

Attending a programme at Railway auditorium, Sinha announced service extension of Gondwana Express up to Sambalpur and also new stoppages of several other trains in Odisha.

He also dedicated new escalator and foot over bridge at Brahmapur railway station as well as improved Circulating Area at Talcher railway station.

The Minister laid foundation stone of new escalator at Bhubaneswar railway station.

He also dedicated 280 Rural Wi-Fi Hotspots and Wi-Fi Choupal Project of Common Service Centre (CSC) for 100 Gram Panchayats of Jagatsinghpur district, 400 numbers of 2G based Transmission Stations and 480 numbers of 3G based Transmission Stations, Comprehensive Pearl Archive Network for 708 sites and Multi-Protocol Lable Switching Transport based Packet Aggregation Network (MNH-PAN) of BSNL.